An Open Letter to John Mccain

Open Letter To John McCain
Dear John,

I received your survey in the mail the other day. After looking it over and giving it some careful thought I tossed it in the trash. Not because you’re not a good man, not because you wouldn’t make a fine president and not because I wouldn’t vote for you. I didn’t answer it because it did not ask the most important question. Let me explain.

It is said that that when science, technology and social conditions all come together at a certain point of convergence the additional ingredient of “the right man” will produce a great invention or discovery. The 19th century gave us numerous examples of this with telegraphy, the cotton gin and so on. When the Civil War came on the additional ingredient of ‘necessity’ spurred invention to new heights. It gave us rifled cannon, the machine gun, aerial observation, trench warfare and scores of other innovations.

Perhaps the greatest innovations of the Civil War were the advances that took place in the navy, which I’m sure you will be aware of as an old salt yourself. One of the U.S. navy’s first steam powered warships was the Merrimac. When the war broke out the Merrimac was undergoing an overhaul at the naval yard in Norfolk, Virginia. When Confederate troops advanced on Norfolk the Merrimac’s power plant had not been reassembled and could not put to sea. She was set afire to deny her to the enemy and her crew escaped to fight another day.

Now up until a short time before that war all ships were powered by sail and naval battles were not decided by sinking the enemy as most people believe. They were won by unmasting the enemy’s ships. Without sail a ship could neither maneuver to aim her guns or avoid gunfire on her most vulnerable points. Only a foolish or overly brave captain continued to fight once his sails were shot away. It was because of this fact of naval warfare that nations never bothered to armor their ships. Armoring could not protect the sails and would only make a ship slower and less maneuverable.

But steam power had been invented by the Civil War and it dawned on the Confederacy that the U.S. had left them a great gift when they fled without having destroyed the Merrimac’s engine. A steam powered ship did not need sails and a steam powered ship would be perfectly invulnerable if it were iron clad. So they raised the Merrimac, fixed its power plant, clad it in armor and renamed it the Virginia.

On March 8, 1862 the Virginia sailed up the Elizabeth River and entered the harbor of Hampton Roads. She proceeded to hammer away at the defenseless wooden ships of the U.S. navy. She sank the Cumberland and all but destroyed the Congress. She then withdrew for the night to rest and refit. The most powerful warship on earth had been innovated because technology, social conditions and the right men had converged at this singular point in time.

The next day the Virginia returned to the Roads certain it would destroy every U.S. ship in the harbor. As it approached to finish off the Congress the crew noticed that there was an odd looking cylindrical object sitting on a raft and that it was blocking their path to their target. As they drew closer the strange object opened fire on them. It was the U.S.S. Monitor!

The ship that had made every warship on earth obsolete was now obsolete herself. She’d held the title for a single day. Conditions had indeed converged to make armoring ships an inevitability. But at the point where they converged the North had found the better man to bring the technology and resources together. This is not coincidence. It is inevitability.

The old saying was proven by the fact that two separate groups of innovators met at the same creative point within a day of one another. If you were to look through history for similar examples you would be shocked by how many you’d find. Take for example the date of 14 March 1876.

On that morning Elisha Gray entered a U.S. patent office to submit his blueprint for a patent caveat. A few hours later and several hundred miles away another man, who had never heard of Elisha Gray, also applied for a patent. This man, Alexander Bell, was granted patent #174465. Both patents were for devices that transmitted voice by wire. A million years of evolution had brought two men together on exactly the same day to patent the invention of the telephone. This is not coincidence. This is inevitability.

Invention, discovery and historical events are often matters of inevitability waiting for the right person to come along and make them happen. On Jan. 1, 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. On that day the struggle for black equality began in America. Strides continue to be taken to this day. Consider sports.

The NFL is now some 80 plus years old. In its first seventy years it would not permit a black man to lead a team as head coach. Forty years ago the NFL began a tradition of playing the AFL title champs against the NFL title champs in a game that came to be called the Super Bowl. Up until last week no black head coach had ever led a team to a title win or coached a Super Bowl team. Then, at about 3pm CST on Jan. 21st, a black man with the unlikely name of Lovie Smith led the Chicago Bears to victory in the NFC title game. Less than four hours later another black man, his name, Tony Dungy, led his Indianapolis Colts to victory in the AFC title game.

The Super Bowl; where no black head coach has ever gone before, will, ten days from today, host two black head coaches on the same day. This is not coincidence. It is inevitability.

And now you ask me if you should run for office and do I have any spare change to help you in your cause. I look around and see that the course of present political events will meet at a point of convergence in ’08. Running along one line to this point is a woman. It is inevitable that she will win – except that… Running along the other line of convergence is a black man and it is inevitable that he will win. I cannot predict what will happen when these lines cross but I can tell you that the only “white” "man" who could ever hope to defeat these inevitables is Jesus Christ, himself. And you ain’t Jesus Christ.

The question you should have asked is, “’What chance do I have of winning?”